


King and No King

by replicasex



Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies)
Genre: Gen, Teamwork
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-04
Updated: 2017-01-04
Packaged: 2018-09-14 18:32:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 531
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9197987
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/replicasex/pseuds/replicasex
Summary: And I that have not your faith, how shall I knowThat in the blinding light beyond the graveWe'll find so good a thing as that we have lost?-Yeats, 'King and No King'





	

**Author's Note:**

> And I that have not your faith, how shall I know  
> That in the blinding light beyond the grave  
> We'll find so good a thing as that we have lost?
> 
> -Yeats, 'King and No King'

The dream starts again – soft lights, machines beeping.  His mother’s voice.  Her hand reaching out to him, but different this time.  In place of his own hand is a stone.  She’s screaming, crying, eyes burning out of sockets awash in purple light.  He wakes up tired and sweating. 

*

When they leave Xandar Peter thinks it’ll all pull together, or at least fall apart.  But life has surprised him, and his motley group is stuck in limbo somehow, the same light sick stutter he felt as his hand closed around the Stone.  They’re brittle at the edges of each other’s spaces, still wary.  They were so connected, Peter thinks, just for a moment.  The pain had come around again to ecstasy.  He knows he isn’t the only one who misses it. 

*

They watch Groot grow, leaf by leaf, and they feel a little less broken.  They collect a bounty on a slaver and Rocket buys a crate full of grenades with his share.  Peter runs through the new cassette tape once, twice, a hundred times.  The others don’t mind.  He hears Gamora hum in the cockpit, not mindful of his presence, and his heart skips a beat when he recognizes the tune.  They’re coming together. 

*

Terra is on the news one day.  They beat back an alien invasion.  The broadcasters are amused, laugh it off.  A funny little backwater.  Drax stares at him sideways. 

“Don’t.” Peter says.  And it’s enough. 

*

They get messages sometimes.  Xandarians mostly – thanking them, telling them stories, sometimes cursing them.  They get a few Kree too.  Peter doesn’t open those anymore.  Every so often he’ll be reminded about his friends’ past lives, how they’re hated, and what people think of them.  Peter finds Gamora sitting on a bench at night, shipboard time.  She’s staring at her comm device. 

Peter sits down next to her. 

“Bad?” He asks.  She nods a little. 

“I don’t know what’s worse:  that I actually killed this man’s family or that I didn’t care enough to remember doing it.”

They never talk about her time with Thanos. 

“You didn’t want to.” Peter tries, hesitating. 

“Does that make it right?”  Gamora shakes her head.  “I had a hundred opportunities to make Thanos kill me.  It would have been easy.” 

“Yeah, it would have been.”  Peter doesn’t know what to say.  “I don’t know – you lived, though.  That was harder.”

“What would Kevin Bacon have done?” Gamora asks, perfectly serious. 

*

They laugh a lot now.  No one calls Rocket vermin and no one implies Gamora’s a whore.  Not for a long time now.  They’re getting better.  Groot will be out of the flowerpot soon.   Drax talks about his family, his wife and daughter.  He’s full of stories.  Peter tells them about Yondu, the Ravagers, he tells them about David Bowie and his mom.  Convinces Drax that there are mutant turtles in the sewers of Earth, righting wrongs. 

*

A mission goes down wrong.  Stuttered breaths when Rocket gets shot.  Red, matted fur.  They fly back to Xandar and Rocket only just lives.  Little scars. 

*

They’re not perfect.  But Peter had held onto perfection before.  Knows how it burns you out, infinite.  They’re better, Peter thinks – they’re family. 

 


End file.
